


Murder in the Wolf's Wood

by ladylace616



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Deception, Don't Like Don't Read, F/M, Intrigue, Minor Character Death, Murder, Non-Consensual Touching, Political Sansa Stark, Untagged Pairings to Maintain Mystery, Warging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:02:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23625826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladylace616/pseuds/ladylace616
Summary: AU. Murder makes for strange bedfellows, as Sansa Stark is about to find out. (Canon Divergent/No Wo5k)
Relationships: Jon Snow & Sansa Stark, Theon Greyjoy/Sansa Stark
Kudos: 6





	Murder in the Wolf's Wood

**Author's Note:**

> _A/N: Forgive me if this is slightly rushed towards the end... if you saw how many partially finished fics were piling up on my harddrive due to coronavirus you would understand my haste to post this!! lol Please be kind, but I do welcome constructive criticism._
> 
> _Without further ado!_
> 
> -&&&-

**Murder in the Wolf’s Wood**

  


**TAGS:** Jon & Sansa, Theon/Sansa, Non-Consensual, Sexual Harassment, Murder &; Intrigue, Murder Plots, Alternate Universe, No Wo5k, Death of a Main Character, Death of a Minor Character, Deception, Political Intrigue, Asha Greyjoy

-&&&-

Sansa Stark was flowering into a beautiful young woman. She was the perfect daughter any lady would be proud to call her own. She was four and ten now, and her hand was being hotly contested for marriage.

One of her more ambitious suitors was Theon Greyjoy. It was worse because his advances were always made in private. They both knew that if Robb was aware of their flirtations, he would not approve. Theon Greyjoy was not good enough for Ned Stark’s daughter.

That did not stop him from being attractive. Sansa’s best friend Jeyne was hopelessly besotted with Theon. She whispered secrets to Sansa that she had once let Theon under her skirts before. Everyone was dimly aware of his reputation, none more so than the castle folk. He had bedded many of the chambermaids and kitchen staff. It was something of an ill-kept secret among the girls of Winterfell, that he was fast and easy and all the more daring for it.

When he first attempted to court Sansa, they met in a deserted hallway after a feast. One of the lords of their keeps had come to court Sansa, and she was done with his company for the night. 

Theon offered to escort her back to her rooms. He had over imbibed during dinner and the drink made him bold. He planted a kiss on Sansa, and with her naïve curiosity, she didn’t chastise him for it. She kissed him back, thrilled to be experiencing something so illicit.

She thought that would be the end of it. He was drunk, and they both knew they could never entertain the thought of a relationship. Truthfully, she would not want such a lewd man for a husband. She had only been interested in kissing.

Theon progressed things beyond that the next time. His hands wandered over her body and he pinned her against a wall, kissing her into a fervor. 

She didn’t want to resist him when he rubbed her through her gown, making her grow terribly excited. It was only when she felt his erection rubbing against her thigh that she became all too aware of their situation. She backed away from him.

“Theon, we can’t do this,” she breathlessly protested.

He reached for her again. 

“No one has to know,” he whispered to her, trying to get her to let him touch her again.

“I’ll know,” Sansa primly said. “We can’t do this, and you shouldn’t seek to dishonor me any further,” Sansa coldly rebuffed his advances. 

Theon’s face grew clouded with anger as Sansa retreated. 

“Tease!” he spat. 

He walked past her, and as he did so, he shoved her so that she fell against the wall. She wasn’t hurt, and mainly cried as he left out of shock more than anything.

The tears didn’t last for long.

~*~

The next time he advanced on her, he was drunk and mean.

When Sansa wouldn’t kiss him back this time, he claimed her kisses by force. He held her hands together with one of his, and pawed at her breasts through her gown with the other. He smothered her cry with his mouth against hers and would have done worse if not for the sound of people coming.

Theon broke from her, and Sansa took the opportunity to run away before they were seen. Theon did not pursue, and he would live to be sorry for his actions. That much Sansa vowed.

She could have gone to her lady mother or father with this information, but she did not want all of court to know that she had entertained his advances at first. She needed to keep that information hushed and wondered to whom else she could turn.

She contemplated telling Robb about his best friend’s transgressions but thought the outcome would be much the same as if she had told her parents. Robb would make a big deal out of defending her honor. There would be tension between the Iron Islands and the North again if Theon perished as a result.

It was strange to consider, but the only other person she could think to confide in was her half brother Jon. 

Jon was different than the others. He could be discreet. He knew how to keep a secret. She had not been close to him in years, but she remembered his loyalty and how kind he was to her, Arya, and Bran growing up. He was known as an honorable son of Ned Stark, even if he was a bastard.

Sansa disliked him on the same principle her mother did. She had been aloof with him since the time she was seven or so and knew what the word bastard meant. He had no reason to bear any love for her anymore, but she knew if she asked it of him he would help her.

She decided to approach him on the matter.

~*~

“Jon, a word, please?”

Jon was surprised to be approached by his sister, Sansa. 

“Of course, my lady,” Jon said with an amiable grin. He offered his arm out for her to hold. With a little hesitation, Sansa laced her arm through his and they started walking towards the glasshouse gardens.

“Is there something I can help you with, my lady?” Jon politely asked of her. 

Sansa smiled, her blue eyes gleaming at the fact that he was making it so easy for her already. She tilted her head to the side and gave Jon a searching look.

“There actually is, if you would be so kind,” she said. 

She led him to an alcove before the glass gardens, out of sight of the main hallway. They sat on the stone bench in the alcove, and Sansa pressed a hand against Jon’s knee.

“What I have to tell you must remain a secret between us,” she said. Jon’s brow furrowed, immediately put on guard. “You can trust me, Sansa. What is it?”

“It’s…” Sansa averted her eyes from his serious, dark gaze. “I hesitate to even mention this, but I felt _someone_ should know…. Well, it’s Theon,” she blurted out.

Jon scowled. 

“What about him?” 

It was common knowledge that he wasn’t Jon’s favorite person.

“He’s been conducting himself dishonorably around me,” Sansa admitted. Jon’s hands noticeably curled into fists. “I’ll kill him if he’s hurt you,” he swore to her, and Sansa grabbed Jon’s hands to soothe him.

“No, no, it’s not like that, Jon,” she murmured to him. “But he’s trying to take liberties with me, and isn’t taking no for an answer,” she said.

“I’ll kill the bastard!” 

Jon stood, as if ready to charge him right then and there.

Sansa yanked Jon back down onto the bench. “Why do you think I’m telling you this and not father? You think I want everyone to know?” she cried out.

“It’s not your fault,” Jon answered her, reading the distress in her posture. Her blue eyes were troubled and her hands anxious, trying to hold Jon in place to listen to her.

“Be that as it may, we have to do something about this, don’t you agree?”

Jon narrowed his eyes at her and asked, “Does Robb know?”

Sansa sighed. “He’s Theon’s best friend, what do you think?”

Jon quickly shook his head. “Well, we’ll just have to tell him, Sansa,” Jon tried to argue. 

Sansa was having none of it. She became agitated and stood, towering over Jon still seated on the bench. “Don’t you understand?! Telling Robb is just like telling mother and father. He would be obligated to defend my honor, and what’s more, is break up his best friendship.”

“You matter more than some son of an Iron Islander.”

Sansa exhaled in one big gust, frustrated. “You don’t understand, I don’t want everyone to know what he’s done. My marriageability cannot be questioned, especially not now. Don’t you understand?!”

Jon looked confused at her. “Understand what?”

“I’m asking you to take care of him!”

Jon looked stricken, ashamed that she would even ask such a thing of him.

“I know I don’t like the man but I’m not a murderer,” he rebuffed her, deeply insulted.

“You don’t have to do it yourself! Arrange for a hunting accident,” she implored him. “Who else might we trust to take care of this for us?”

Jon stood, eager to end the conversation and be away from her. “I’m sure I don’t know anyone I would trust to murder for me, and neither should you,” Jon said in an accusatory tone.

He meant to draw away from her and take his leave, but she stopped him. She put a hand on his arm and drew closer to him. Her big blue eyes were pleading as she looked up at him. 

She was trusting him to help her. What she said was true about confronting the Iron Islander in open court. It would bring shame on her, and he didn’t want that for her. That didn’t mean the Iron Islander couldn’t use an attitude adjustment. That much Jon was willing to do for her.

“I’ll talk to Theon for you,” Jon offered.

Sansa looked terrified. “No!” She grabbed Jon by his jerkin and threw herself bodily at him. “Oh, Jon, just please say you’ll do this for me,” she begged him. 

“Theon’s not ever going to change! Next time, it might not just be a kiss that he steals from me,” she argued. “Do you want that to be on your conscience if something happens to me?”

The cogs were turning a mile a minute in Jon’s head. When she posed it that way to him, Theon was a threat he couldn’t afford to ignore. 

He was starting to understand her conundrum. If she revealed Theon’s actions to Ned and Catelyn, there would definitely be inquiries and intrigue. Her marriageability could be called into question. The easiest way to handle the mess was to have Theon sent away or to kill him. To have him sent away would be to tell the world what he had done, and Sansa didn’t want that.

It was looking more and more like the only option.

He could quietly handle this affair and sweep it under the rug. What was done in defense of one’s family could not be called entirely dishonorable. 

Theon was asking for it. Jon had never liked or trusted the cocky youth. If he met his end in a hunting accident, no one could say that the North had mistreated him or caused his demise directly. He was starting to see things Sansa’s way.

“Father could send him to the Wall,” Jon tried one last time. Sansa shook her head. “Not without implicating me,” she said. 

Jon cursed under his breath. “Yeah, yeah, you and your damn marriageability,” he said with a sigh.

“Is it settled then?” she asked.

Jon didn’t want to agree. He only nodded.

Sansa patted Jon on the arm as she took her leave of him. 

“Good,” she said with a smile.

~*~

It happened the following week. 

~*~

Asha Greyjoy traveled to Winterfell. She demanded to know more about the circumstances of her brother’s demise. She was convinced her brother had met some foul end, she just hadn’t ascertained who was responsible yet.

She did quite a lot of snooping in her time at Winterfell. She interrogated the castle folk, determined to get to the bottom of the mystery. 

The story was that her brother had been shot through the lung with an arrow during a hunting accident. 

~*~

“I’ll not have you making accusations about me or my house,” the great Lord Stark said. “There has been no crime done here, only an ill-timed shot,” Ned argued. “I will not punish my son for something that was clearly an accident and not done in ill will. It’s a hunting party, we are all aware of the risks,” Ned said.

“What if I say otherwise?” Asha challenged the Northern Lord.

Ned inclined his head, as if to let her continue.

“What if I have evidence that there was bad blood between the two of them?”

“My son is no murderer,” Ned automatically defended Jon.

“Of course, that’s what everyone thinks. Not the honorable Lord Snow. Even though he’s a bastard, he’s a prized son of the North. Of course, he wouldn’t commit murder.” Asha looked around the court assembled. Her voice was louder when she called out, “Alone!”

“But what if it wasn’t his idea? What if someone put him up to it?” Asha asked. 

“And who would do such a thing?” Ned querulously asked.

“Of that, I’m not sure yet,” Asha reluctantly admitted. 

“Then you have no sound evidence,” Ned said to her. “Good day, Lady Asha.” He dismissed her, and the guards advanced on her so as to frog march her out of the Great Hall. 

Asha didn’t allow them to lay a hand on her. She turned and marched out before they reached her. 

She was hell-bent and determined to find out exactly that- who would do such a thing?

~*~

This query led to an investigation into Theon’s private life. Just who would want him dead? The more Asha uncovered, the more she wished she did not know as much about her little brother.

He was a philandering son of a bitch. There were many women in the castle who had claimed to sleep with him that had been spurned by him. Anyone of them could have had a hand in his death. Asha did not relish the thought of running down every one of his bedmates during her stay in this frozen wasteland.

But she would do what she must, which was exactly that.

The people of Winterfell were not quick to sell out Jon Snow, bastard or no. He was the son of Ned Stark. He was known for being just as honorable. He was an excellent swordsman and easy on the eyes to the ladies. Ned had arranged a betrothal between him and Alys Karstark. Jon was to take her family name after they wed. Never a Stark, but he could be a Karstark.

The first and most prominently featured name on her list was Roslin from the Wintertown brothel. Asha found the woman fetching her own self, and wouldn’t have minded a roll in the hay with her under different circumstances.

As things were, she was the only one interested in solving the mystery that was her brother’s murder.

Roslin had quite a lot to share. She confided that she had slept with both Robb and Theon, but never Jon Snow. She knew that Theon had a distaste for the bastard of Winterfell. Asha sensed it was only because he was barely above his station in the household, and he had to piss on someone to feel better about himself.

The question was, did Jon share Theon’s animosity? What could have made the honorable Jon Snow kill his brother’s best friend and father’s ward?

Asha developed a habit of following people of interest in her case. She went to the gatherings in the Great Hall in the evenings. She paid attention to who spoke to whom.

Lady Sansa Stark and Jon Snow never conversed together. She was a highborn lady that shared the dais with her lord father and lady mother. She was separate from him, and all Asha had learned pointed to antagonism between them as well. Sansa Stark, after all, was her mother’s daughter. She inherited her mother’s dislike of the bastard, among other things.

Sansa Stark was highly prized in the North. The bitch had a gaze that suggested butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. Her sweetness was a facade, something Asha could recognize from years of dealing with rough and dangerous women across the world. Sansa wasn’t quite as dumb as she would have one think.

The little sister Arya worshipped the ground Jon walked on. Arya was still a little girl, and not an attractive one that Theon would have made a pass at. She was boyish and wild, and Theon seemed to prefer more womanly girls. She doubted he could have made a pass at the young Arya, and compromise her virtue.

But Sansa…. 

Asha grew more suspicious of the redhead. She resolved to follow her one day and discovered her sneaking away to the God’s Wood, to meet her half brother.

Jon Snow stood beneath the Weirwood, waiting for her. His direwolf Ghost lay at the base of the Weirwood tree, red eyes alert. Sansa ran up to him, and Ghost seemed to look straight at Asha. She grew uneasy as she watched the siblings, but couldn’t hear anything that they said.

Perhaps too late, Asha wondered where Sansa’s direwolf might be.

Lady had been stalking Asha as Asha stalked them. All at once, the direwolf lunged on the shadowy figure following her master, intending harm.

~*~

“Are you mad?! She’s killed her! How are we going to explain this?!”

Sansa was eerily calm.

“We’ll say that Asha tried to attack you. You saw her in the Great Hall. She already blamed you for his murder- it won’t be a far stretch to believe that she decided to take justice into her own hands.”

“Sansa…”

“She tried to attack you, and Ghost only did what was natural. He saved your life.”

Jon looked at her with disbelief clear on his face. “Why would-”

“I can’t have been here for this, Jon. You know that.”

“You want me to lie? Again?”

“There won’t be any repercussions for you. She attacked you, and in doing so made herself an enemy of our house. Father won’t condemn you for your direwolf acting in your defense. Under those circumstances, her death would be justified.”

Lady’s muzzle was still wet and red with blood. Sansa stroked her behind the ears as she spoke calmly to Jon. There was no room for argument with her tone. She was serious and decided, and Jon would have to go along. He did not want Sansa to suffer the consequences of her actions.

Sansa was the one that attacked Asha. She had influence over her direwolf, and she urged the huge animal to attack the Iron Islander. One less fly in her ointment. She would dispose of the only woman asking questions about the whole affair, and things would quiet over time.

~*~

Ned was forced to kill Ghost for the misdeed.

Jon was beside himself in grief at the decree. He wouldn’t let his father perform the task. “No, I should be the one,” Jon insisted.

It broke his heart in two, to be the one to sever the great direwolf’s head.

Not able to live with the shame, Jon went to the Wall and took the black.

As for Winterfell, Sansa and Lady remained. The Iron Islands attempted another rebellion at the death of Asha, and Ned quelled the rebellion.

Sansa secured a betrothal to Prince Joffrey. She could not have been happier.

Or so she thought.

  
  


**The End.**


End file.
